Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site watmath.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!jamcmullan
From: jamcmullan@watmath.UUCP (Judy McMullan)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: marriage and permanence of relationships
Message-ID: <7840@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-May-84 12:35:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.7840
Posted: Thu May 24 12:35:50 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 26-May-84 13:22:10 EDT
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 36

Hey! I am not claiming that one must be married to feel deeply about one's
lover or mate. I certainly don't believe that. Neither do I feel that a
serious relationship has to be a permanent one.

The original question (about why the women the fellow was going out with
were always interested in marriage) made me think that he was not interested
in a long-term relationship. Of course, he may have meant he wanted a
long-term relationship WITHOUT the formality of marriage, but that didn't
seem to be the focus of the question. I just took marriage to be equal to
long-term relationship. I added point 3) (to be "normal") to clarify MY
belief that a long term relationship didn't necessarily equal marriage but
that, for a lot of people (me included), it is better -- socially -- to be
married when the relationship is "for life".

If the women he was going out with were all interested in marriage, they
probably felt that they would be better off married than with a private
commitment. We could start a discussion on the benefits of a legally
recognized union vs. a private agreement. I don't think that's what the
original question was about, though.

On that topic, I got a bit of a shock when they introduced the Family Law
reforms in Ontario. They had quite a bit of stuff about common-law marriages
in the package. At that time, I was living with my lover but certainly did
not want the legalities of marriage to affect our relationship. I was afraid
I was going to wake up one morning and find myself married by default!!
Fortunately, they made the living-together period five years instead of the
two years that was talked about. We were getting (mentally) ready to flee
the apartment as we had been living together about 1 1/2 years at the time!

I don't like a lot of the laws that affect married people, already. I was
a bit annoyed that they were going to stick their laws on my love life when
I WASN'T married. (Well, they were good reforms in some ways -- but they
benefitted other people, not me).

   --from the sssstickkky keyboard of JAM
   ...!{allegra|ihnp4|clyde|decvax}!watmath!jamcmullan